This one was easier. “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” I promised. And I would. Some of it, anyway.
She went still, probably surprised that I didn’t argue. Then, her voice came softer. “The stuff in this house… you picked it, didn’t you?”
I cleared my throat. “Through my mama, yeah.”
“From our talks?”
“Yes.”
She blinked a few times, like she was trying to hold tears back.
“Why?” she whispered.
My brain flooded with the truths I could tell her…I knew you were mine since I saw you in a living room in the country. You looked scared in that kitchen but still chose to breathe with me. Anyway, you said you wanted a soft life, and I’m gon’ be the one to give it to you.
She’d run screaming. I kept it simple.
“Because you said what you wanted, and I listened,” I told her.
“Then why couldn't you listen when I said what Ididn'twant?”
For that, I had no answer. She swallowed and looked away. Both of us stared at the ceiling.
“This is not how I imagined my wedding night,” she mumbled eventually.
I looked at her again. “What did you imagine?”
“Not sleeping with a mile of bed between my husband and me.”
“That’s your choice,” I returned softly.
Her head turned and she scowled at me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’m making free choices. Act like I’m not making the choices that make sense for me in the context you put me in. My choice to be distant is based on your choices, like your disappearing. You disappeared, Targen! You were gone. I didn’t know if you were dead. I didn’t know if you left me. I didn’t know?—”
Her voice caught. She recovered fast, lifting her chin like she hated that it almost cracked.
That fucked with me, hit me right in the heart. All I could say was, “I know. I’m sorry.”
Theory’s laugh came out dry. “Sorry don’t fix it.”
“No. But I gotta start there.”
“You left me,” she repeated. “And then you came back and started… designing things and building things and making decisions and acting like I’m supposed to trust you.”
My jaw tightened. “I’m not acting like you supposed to trust me.”
“You are,” she snapped.
“Nah, shorty. I’m showing you that I’m gon’ earn your trust.”
“Well, until you earn it, the sleeping arrangements will stay me in New York and you in LA,” she said, patting the space between us.
I chuckled softly. “I’m good with that. My non-negotiable was you sleeping with me. That don’t mean sex. It means you wake up and know you not alone.”
She drew in a breath, the soft sound almost inaudible. When she didn’t say anything, I continued. “You can hate me. You can ice me out. You can tell me this is in name only. But you not sleeping by yourself. Not tonight. Not ever. I hopemypretty, petty little wife understands that.”
